


The Prince's Guard

by azenki



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: !!!, (but only kind of), Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No War, Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Explicit Language, Fluff, Jet (Avatar) Lives, Jet is not an asshole, Lu Ten (Avatar) Lives, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Secret Identity, and hyphens, and the word 'says', but only the tiniest bit of angst, heavy abuse of italics, just a smidge of murder mystery but like without the murder, some mild violence, there's the death of minor ocs in the first few paragraphs so like watch out for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26714134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azenki/pseuds/azenki
Summary: The window is open, the Prince is gone, and there's a scarred stranger in the Prince's rooms. It doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together—the stranger is obviously an assassin.Sokka presses the tip of his sword further into the stranger's neck. "I'm going to give you one chance to tell me who you are and why I shouldn't kill you right now," he says, his voice deadly calm. "Start talking."Or: when Sokka gets assigned to guard duty outside the rooms of a Prince that no one's seen in six years, he isn't expecting to make any new friends. But when he ends up meeting Li, the servant with a scar and a mysterious backstory that he refuses to share, Sokka gets more than he bargained for.Ft. secret identities, a smidge of murder, and the inherent romanticism of falling in love with the same person twice.
Relationships: Jet & Sokka (Avatar), Piandao & Jet, Piandao & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), minor Lu Ten & Zuko
Comments: 220
Kudos: 879





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i read one (1) line from legacy of the fire nation about 'the prince and the fool' and this happened. my exams are in a week. i have many regrets.
> 
> also, in case you didn't read the tags - this is a no-war AU.

They’re going the wrong way.

When Sokka realises it, he screeches to a halt right there in the middle of the hall. Jet crashes into his back, both of them stumbling forward. Above them, below them, they can hear the footsteps of the other guards.

“What the hell?” Jet spits out. “What are you _doing?”_

“We’re idiots,” Sokka breathes. He’s staring straight ahead at the end of the hallway, but he doesn’t really see it. His heart feels like it’s two sizes too big for his chest, rising up his throat and cutting off his air. “Holy shit, we’re _idiots.”_

“Damn right you’re an idiot,” Jet snaps. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re _meant_ to be protecting the Fire Lord.” He shoves forward, trying to push his way past Sokka. Sokka grabs him by the arm and holds him fast, squeezing so tightly Jet winces.

“The assassins,” he whispers. His voice comes out raspier than normal. “They’re not heading to the Fire Lord. The explosion was a distraction, and we…” 

His voice trails off into nothing. Jet’s eyes widen as he realises the same thing Sokka has: they’ve been tricked. They’ve fallen right into the trap that was set up for them, as easily as rabbits in a forest. Every single guard in the palace is heading to the East Wing, leaving the West Tower completely undefended, and—

He and Jet look at each other, both of them coming to the same conclusion at the same time.

The assassins aren’t going after the Fire Lord. They’re going after his son.

Sokka turns, Jet at his side, and takes off running down the hall.

* * *

The West Tower is a part of the palace that Sokka’s only seen once, back when Piandao was showing him around the place on his first day. He’d been told it was almost certain that he’d never see it again, but when has the universe ever decided not to pull the rug out from under his feet?

The Tower itself is a giant wooden behemoth, a red-and-gold pagoda that’s tall and imposing on the outside and even more so on the inside. The stairs zigzag from floor to floor, and by the time Sokka gets to the floor where the Prince’s rooms are, he’s already wheezing for breath. 

So is the guard outside the Prince’s door. He’s shoved up against the wall, his weapons lying scattered around him, the assassin’s black-clad forearm pressing into his throat. His partner’s keeled over on the ground in front of Sokka, blood pooled around her waist and undeniably dead.

For a second, everything stops. The guard’s eyes jump to Sokka, wide with panic. The assassin’s wearing a mask, so Sokka can’t see their eyes, but he imagines they do the same.

Jet bursts out from the staircase behind him, and the second snaps as quick and clean as a bone in a butchery. The assassin flicks out a knife with their free hand and, in a motion that’s faster than Sokka can see, they slash the guard’s throat. By the time the guard’s body hits the ground, they’re already moving.

Sokka reacts on instinct. He reaches behind himself and shoves Jet to one side of the hallway, throwing himself to the other. The assassin lunges between them into empty space, and Jet—ever the dirty fighter—whirls around to land a kick squarely in the small of their back.

The assassin stumbles. Sokka glances down at the floor, and he makes three very important observations in the span of a second:

One: the assassin’s off-balance.

Two: they’re standing on the edge of a very, very long staircase.

Three: all it takes is a push between the shoulders, and they’ll go down like a duck in hunting season.

Sokka’s sword is already unsheathed. Before he can think better of it, he steps forward and slams the hilt of it into the assassin’s back. 

For a single second, the assassin teeters, pinwheeling their arms. Sokka drops down and sweeps out a kick, hitting them right in the back of the knees, and they topple forwards.

The sound of a body falling down the stairs of the West Tower isn’t a sound that Sokka wants to hear again. He and Jet watch, both of them wincing, as the assassin’s head hits the edge of a step with a sickening crack. After that, the assassin goes limp, knives falling out of their hands as they tumble down the rest of the stairs.

When they reach the bottom of the first flight, they stay there. Sokka holds his breath, raising his sword just in case they’re not dead—but no. The assassin is motionless, lying in a hunched-up ball on the landing. Sokka’s about seventy-percent sure they’re not breathing.

“Think they’re dead?” he finally asks, glancing sideways. Jet grimaces down at the assassin.

“Probably,” he says. “I’ll check.”

He sheathes his swords, then goes down the flight of stairs two steps at a time. Sokka watches as he picks up one of the assassin’s knives, which are scattered all over the stairs. He crouches down beside the assassin and turns them over, tugging his glove off and pressing one hand against their neck. 

A moment passes. Two moments. Three. Four moments pass, and then Jet moves his hand away.

He raises the knife, and Sokka knows with a sinking certainty what he’s going to do.

He averts his eyes and turns away, but there’s only so much he can do to block it out. Even standing like this, facing the wall, he can see the slivers of torchlight that reflect off the blade. He watches the reflection hold still for a second, a line on the wall, before it comes down in a single quick flash.

Down on the landing, Sokka hears Jet get back to his feet. When he finally turns back to look, it’s to a sight that he expected: the knife’s been driven into the assassin’s chest, all the way up to the hilt. It’s not a bloody kill, especially not with the assassin’s black clothing, and Sokka’s never really been squeamish—but his stomach turns a little anyway.

Jet glances up at him as he pulls his glove back on. “You can never be too sure,” he says, starting back up the stairs. “Go check on the Prince.”

Sokka shakes himself back into the present. Right. The Prince. The whole reason they disobeyed their orders and came to the West Tower. He...should probably make sure the Prince is okay.

He turns around to face the hallway. There are...a lot more bodies than he thought there’d be. There’s the guard at his feet, then the guard at the door, then two more black-clad bodies a little further down the hallway. The whole floor reeks of blood. Sokka grimaces to himself, drawing up the collar of his uniform to drape it over his nose like a mask.

The Prince’s door is relatively unscathed, save for a long scratch scored along its width, but Sokka knows better than to assume that that means the Prince is safe as well. He edges past the body of the second guard, then reaches out and knocks on the door.

“Your highness?” he calls. “Are you okay?”

The door handle rattles, so suddenly that Sokka actually jumps back a bit. 

“Who are you?” someone snarls from the other side. “What did you do to my guards?”

“I’m Sokka,” Sokka says automatically. “And I didn’t do anything to your guards. I’m a guard, too. North Wall.”

The person—the _Prince,_ because who else could it be—snorts. “Likely story. _Sokka_ isn’t exactly a Fire Nation name.”

Sokka bites back a retort that’d probably get him into more trouble than it’s worth. “Because I’m _not_ Fire Nation,” he grits out. “I’m one of Piandao’s wards. Believe me, highness, I don’t exactly have anything to gain from capturing you.”

There’s a pause, like the Prince is actually considering his words. Then, abruptly: “If you’re actually Piandao’s ward, then what’s the name of his butler?”

“His _butler?”_ Sokka can’t help but scoff a little. “You mean Fat? Looks like he’s dead inside, has those stupid sideburns like Zhao, hates everyone and everything?”

“Okay, so you’re definitely not lying,” the Prince mutters, with just enough resentment that Sokka gets the feeling that he knows Fat a little better than he wants to. “So, _Sokka._ What’s a guard from the North Wall doing here? I’d assume you’d be running to protect my father.”

He says the word _father_ with a bitterness that makes Sokka raise his brows. There’s definitely a story there.

“We were meant to be,” he says, shrugging even though the Prince can’t see it. “I guess we were the only ones who figured out it was a diversion.”

“Which is why we need to tell the rest of the palace,” Jet interrupts. Sokka looks over to find him crouched over the other two assassins, no doubt having just double-checked to make sure that they’re dead. Jet gives Sokka and the door a calculating look, then gets to his feet.

“I’ll go get Piandao,” he says, jabbing two fingers in Sokka’s direction. “You stay here and make sure the Prince doesn’t die.”

“I can take care of myself,” the Prince grumbles. Sokka and Jet both ignore him, exchanging a nod as Jet starts down the stairs. Sokka watches him go, then turns back around and raps on the door.

“You never answered my question, you know,” he says. “Are you okay? All limbs attached? Are all your organs where they’re meant to be?”

“I’m _fine,”_ the Prince snaps. “Is Kinzu okay? Hina?”

Sokka glances down at the bodies by his feet. “Your guards? ...Not really.”

The silence that follows is so weighted that Sokka swears he can feel the air itself pressing down on his shoulders. In the dead (ha) silence of the hallway, he hears it when the Prince exhales. There’s a soft little _thunk_ after that, which Sokka assumes is the Prince resting his forehead on the door.

“Can you do me a favour?”

The Prince’s voice is quiet and hoarser than it was before. Which is saying something, because the Prince’s voice is...very distinctive, actually, all deep and raspy around the edges. Sokka chews his lip and crosses his arms, tapping his foot against the floor.

“Define ‘favour',” he says. 

The Prince exhales again, louder this time. “Close their eyes for me,” he says. “Make it so they’re sitting against the wall. Just...let them have some honour. Don’t leave them on the floor.”

Sokka blinks a couple times, uncrossing his arms. “...You mean your guards?” He looks down at them—Kinzu and Hina, is what the Prince called them. “You...want me to give them honour?”

“I want you to let them _keep_ their honour,” the Prince corrects. “And yes.” He’s quiet for a second, and then: “Please, Sokka.”

Sokka stares at the door. He’s not going to pretend he’s not surprised. He knows that Fire Lord Ozai wouldn’t have cared if his dead guards kept their honour or not. He knows that a lot of nobles wouldn’t care if their dead guards kept their honour or not. But, apparently, Prince Zuko does.

“Okay,” he says slowly, crouching down beside the nearest guard. It’s the man, his eyes wide with surprise, his mouth gaping open like he can’t believe he's dead. Sokka lifts him up by the underarms and shifts him so that he’s sitting a little straighter, his back up against the wall. He closes the guard— _Kinzu’s_ —eyes, then tilts his head down so that his jaw closes, too.

Now for the other guard, Hina. She’s significantly harder to adjust than Kinzu, because she’s lying down. Sokka has to drag her by the arms over to the wall, where he props her up besides Kinzu. He folds her hands over the gash in her stomach, covering the worst of the gore, and slides her eyelids shut.

“They’re done,” he calls out to the Prince. His voice cracks a little, but he finds that he doesn’t really care. He sidesteps Kinzu and Hina so that he’s standing in front of the door again, staring at the scratch that the assassins left on the wood.

“Thank you,” the Prince says quietly. “I would’ve done it myself, but…” He rattles the door handle again. “I can’t leave my rooms.”

Sokka frowns. He knows neither Kinzu or Hina were carrying keys; he would’ve seen them if they did. Which means… “Wait, are you—are you stuck in there? Like, you can’t get out? At all?”

“Not without my father’s permission,” the Prince says dully. “And he only—”

He’s cut off by the sound of echoing footsteps from the stairwell. Sokka snaps his head towards the stairs, tensing up in case it’s another assassin—but he recognises the sharp, brisk steps that are steadily coming up the stairs. It’s definitely Piandao. 

“Looks like our time is up, your highness,” he says. “It was nice meeting you. You’ve got a cool voice.”

“I’ve got a cool _what?”_

“Voice,” Sokka repeats, shrugging. Yeah, it might be a weird thing to mention, but he can embarrass himself all he wants. It’s not like he’ll ever be seeing the Prince again. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s pretty distinctive.”

“Uh,” the Prince says. “Okay.”

Sokka opens his mouth to say something along the lines of _let me know if you ever decide to visit Piandao’s estate,_ but he’s interrupted by the man himself. Piandao storms onto the floor like he’s got some kind of vendetta against the West Tower, Jet at his heels. 

Sokka raises one hand. “Hi.”

Piandao locks eyes with him. He’s got that face on again, the one that he seems to reserve for Sokka and Sokka alone. It’s a very unique mix of anger, exasperation, and just a hint of pride.

“You,” Piandao begins, “are by _far_ the most reckless, unheeding, foolhardy—”

_“Thank you, Sokka, you saved the Prince’s life, Sokka,”_ Sokka mutters. Piandao makes a sound like a boiling tea kettle and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“You disobeyed your _direct orders,_ Sokka,” he grits out, finally lowering his hand after what feels like an eternity. Sokka’s pretty sure he can see a vein popping on Piandao’s temple. “Captain Zhao has reported you— _both_ of you—” He levels Jet with a glare as well, which makes Sokka feel slightly better. “—for insubordination in a time of crisis. And when the Captain of the Guard himself reports you…” He exhales, rubbing his temple with two fingers, and says something under his breath that sounds a lot like _Agni help me, they’re both idiots._ Sokka dutifully chooses to ignore that.

“With all due respect, sir,” Jet says, with a tone that implies that absolutely zero respect is due, “what’s the worst Zhao can do? Suspend us? Fire us?”

“No,” Piandao bites out. “The worst he can do is report you to a higher authority. Which is exactly what he’s done.”

The pit of Sokka’s stomach seems to drop out into nothing. Zhao is a buffoon, but he’s a buffoon with power. And, when it comes to the palace guards, the only person that has _more_ power than the Captain of the Guard is...

“Sokka. Jet.” Piandao flicks his fingers at both of them in a ‘follow me’ motion. “The Fire Lord wants to see you.”

* * *

“How much longer do we have to stand here?” Jet grumbles. “If he wants to see us, the least he can do is not keep us waiting for a whole _hour—”_

Sokka steps on his foot, putting enough weight on Jet’s toes to get him to snap his jaw shut. _“Shut up,”_ he whispers furiously, glancing pointedly at the guards standing in front of them. They’re part of the Fire Lord’s personal guard, which means that they get fancy helmets, which in turn means that Sokka has no way of knowing if they’re looking at him or not. Even if they aren’t, he’s still feeling very, very watched.

The doors to the throne room are tall, and red, and way more scary than they have any right to be. Both doors are gilded with symmetrical designs of dragons and phoenixes, chasing each other across the wood in an immortalized dance. Sokka traces the path of one of the dragons with his eyes, following it all the way up to the gold fire that’s issuing forth from its mouth.

The doors groan open, and Sokka immediately jumps into a perfect pose: back straight, hands by his sides, feet shoulder-width apart. On either side of him, Jet and Piandao do the same.

The guard that’s just opened the door isn’t wearing a helmet, and his scowl is fully visible. He looks down his nose at them and says sourly, “The Fire Lord will see you now.”

Sokka swallows. Piandao moves first, leading the way through the double doors. Sokka and Jet fall into step behind him, following him into the throne room. Sokka keeps his head bowed—he’s not stupid enough to try looking at the Fire Lord before he’s been given permission to—and he bites down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from flinching when the doors slam shut behind them.

In front of him, Piandao kneels. Sokka and Jet follow suit. 

The throne room is surprisingly cold. Sokka would’ve expected it to be hotter, what with the whole ‘wall of flames’ thing, but it feels more like a tomb than a throne room. It’s a wide, flat, windowless space, full of pillars—and nothing _but_ pillars, apparently. Sokka’s vision is admittedly limited, considering the fact that he’s staring at the floor, but he can’t see a single piece of furniture in the room that isn’t the throne. 

“Rise,” the Fire Lord says coldly. His voice echoes around the room. Sokka waits for Piandao to stand before he does, folding his hands behind his back and finally lifting his chin.

The Fire Lord is little more than a silhouette, safely ensconced behind his wall of flames. At the bottom of the dais, a safe distance away from the flames, are a line of imperial guards. Sokka can’t help but do a quick look at the rest of the room without turning his head, and it’s only then that he sees all the other uniformed figures standing silently around the throne room.

He feels a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. They’ve been surrounded on all sides since the second they stepped through the door, and he didn’t even notice. That's...not a comforting thought.

“Piandao,” the Fire Lord says shortly. “Captain Zhao tells me that your wards are guilty of insubordination. Insubordination in a time of crisis, no less.”

Piandao bows, which finally lets Sokka see the one person he really didn’t want to see right now: Zhao. He’s standing on the left side of the Fire Lord’s dais, just in front of the line of guards. He’s smirking down at them like the bastard he is, and Sokka resists the urge to clench his fists; Zhao has never liked Piandao, which means that he, by default, has never liked Piandao’s wards. Unfortunately, Sokka and Jet both fall into that category.

“Permission to speak, majesty?” Piandao asks. His voice is carefully calm.

“Permission granted.”

Piandao straightens. “Captain Zhao is correct in that my wards did, in fact, leave their designated posts,” he says. “They also disobeyed direct orders. And they did do so in a time of crisis.” He lifts his chin a bit. “However, my wards saw a justifiable reason to disobey orders.”

“And what reason was that?” Zhao cuts in. “What could possibly justify abandoning the Fire Lord amidst an attack?”

“Saving the Prince’s life,” Piandao retorts, and Zhao falls silent. Sokka feels a stab of vicious satisfaction at the look on the Captain’s face. 

“Saving the Prince’s life,” the Fire Lord repeats. His voice hasn’t changed in the slightest, not even though they’re discussing the life of his son. “And why, pray tell, would the Prince’s life be in need of saving?”

“My wards realised that the East Wing explosion was a diversion, majesty,” Piandao says smoothly. “As the assassins expected, every guard in the palace was called to the East Wing. The West Tower was, therefore, left undefended—and the Prince left vulnerable.”

“Interesting,” the Fire Lord muses, and Sokka’s heart leaps into his throat. No matter how bitterly the Prince spoke about his father, there’s no way that the Fire Lord won’t give them _some_ kind of leeway for saving his life. Right?

And then the Fire Lord speaks, and all of Sokka’s hopes wink out like a candle in the wind.

“I understand that your wards felt the need to protect the Prince,” the Fire Lord says coolly. “But the Prince is already well-protected. The guards assigned to his rooms are perfectly capable of fighting off any intruders on their own. Your wards should have known this. They should not have interfered.” The wall of fire simmers down to barely knee-height. “They are to be expelled from the palace guard immediately. See to it that they are gone by sundown.”

“But—your majesty—”

Sokka flinches, trading a wide-eyed look with Jet. Piandao’s just done the worst thing he could’ve done when talking to the Fire Lord: he protested. In a single coordinated movement, the guards lined along the edges of the throne room level their blades at the three of them. Sokka feels his heart kick into overdrive as the Fire Lord slowly rises from his seat, the wall of fire blazing before him. 

“My decision is final, Piandao.” His voice is colder than the throne room, colder than a blade, colder than the bodies outside the Prince’s rooms. “Your wards should consider themselves lucky that they are being released with honour. My father would have ordered them publicly humiliated. _His_ father would have called for their deaths.”

Sokka watches the bob of Piandao’s throat as he swallows, then bows. “Understood, majesty. Thank you for your attention.”

The Fire Lord makes a shooing gesture with his hand. “Leave. You are dismissed from my—”

The doors to the throne room slam open so loudly that Sokka has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. Everyone in the room whirls around to stare at the intruder, the guards along the walls dropping into defensive stances—

High General Iroh is standing in the doorway, his hands folded in front of his stomach and his face serenely calm. He nods at Piandao, then the guards, and finally at the Fire Lord.

Not a single guard lowers their weapon. Sokka wonders what that says about the Fire Lord’s relationship with his brother.

“Come, now, Ozai,” the General says easily. “Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?”

“Iroh,” the Fire Lord grinds out. The wall of fire flares for a moment, sparks and cinders flying into the air. “What reason do you give for your intrusion?”

The General beams up at him like he hasn’t just barged into the throne room of the most powerful man in the Fire Nation. “A very good one, dear brother. You see, I myself was just in the West Tower, and I’m afraid to say that the guards appointed to the Prince’s rooms are dead.”

The Fire Lord stiffens. “What.”

“Tragic, no?” The General sighs, shaking his head. “Clearly, if these two young men hadn’t reached the West Tower in time, the Prince would have met much the same fate.”

“I have no time for your flowery words, Iroh,” the Fire Lord snarls. With the way he’s stuck halfway between the Fire Lord and the General, Sokka feels like prey caught between two predators. “If you have something to say to me, then say it.”

The General smiles benignly. “Oh, no, dear brother. I am simply suggesting that, seeing as the palace guard has been depleted of two valued members already, it may be wise to give these boys, ah...a punishment that fits their crime, so to speak.” He pauses. “Though, of course, it wouldn’t be considered a _punishment._ A promotion, in fact, would be a more fitting word.”

Zhao’s left eye is twitching. “High General, forgive my interruption, but are you suggesting that these two boys be _promoted_ for disobeying orders?”

“I am indeed,” the General says genially. “Specifically, I am suggesting that they be promoted to the Prince’s guard.”

Sokka inhales so fast he swears he goes lightheaded for a second. Next to him, Jet is staring at the General like he has two heads. 

He’s kidding, right? He has to be kidding. No one gets promoted to the Prince’s guard, especially not two nobodies who’ve just disobeyed their commanding officer. Spirits above, they’re meant to be packing their bags right now.

“You want them to guard the Prince.” The Fire Lord says the words like a statement, not a question; his voice is flat and monotone. He sounds like he was expecting this. “And why should they do that, Iroh? Who will vouch for them?”

“I will,” Piandao breaks in. The centre of attention shifts to him, and Sokka wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Piandao’s meant to be _smart,_ damn it, he’s not meant to do stupid things like draw the Fire Lord’s attention—

“And I will,” the General says firmly, lifting his chin. Sokka breathes a sigh of relief as the Fire Lord’s attention moves away from Piandao. There’s a palpable tension in the air, like a string stretched taut between the two brothers.

_“And,”_ the General adds, with a tone that sounds like he’s just dealt the final blow, “the Prince has agreed to vouch for them, too.”

Sokka snaps his head around to gape at the General. It’s rude, and he definitely shouldn’t be staring at a member of the royal family like that, but no one seems to notice. They’re all too busy gawking at the General, which is justified. The Prince—the sickly, frail Prince who no one’s seen in six years—has _vouched_ for someone? It’s unheard of. 

But then again, two minutes ago, the possibility of promotion to the Prince’s guard was unheard of too.

The Fire Lord still hasn’t answered. The General is staring him down, even though there’s no way he’d be able to see the Fire Lord staring back; the Fire Lord is sitting completely in shadow. 

“The boy needs guards his own age, Ozai,” the General says, and Sokka gets the feeling that sometime in the last thirty seconds, the argument has shifted to another, more familiar debate. Judging from the tired way the General says his words, it’s not the first time he and the Fire Lord have argued over this. “He needs _friends.”_

“He does _not,”_ the Fire Lord seethes. The wall of fire flares again, so hot and bright that Sokka has to take a step back. “He’s fared without friends for the last six years, he can stand to last a little longer.”

“Azula had friends,” the General says, quietly but firmly. The Fire Lord abruptly stops talking, though the wall of fire stays burning high. 

The silence is so tense that Sokka wonders if a single person in the room is breathing.

“Yes,” the Fire Lord finally says, his voice slow and contemplative. “Azula had... _friends.”_

There’s something about the way he says _friends_ that makes Sokka’s stomach twist. He says it like _friends_ means _attachments,_ like it means _sidekicks,_ like it means _something useful._ It kind of makes Sokka want to walk up there and ask him, _excuse me, your majesty sir, but have you ever had a friend in your life?_

(He’s about ninety-percent sure the answer would be no.)

“Well?” The General spreads his arms. “What will it be, dear brother?”

There’s a long, lengthy silence that feels way too much like it _shouldn’t_ be silent. Sokka darts his eyes between the General and the Fire Lord; he feels like the two of them are playing some kind of game that the rest of them don’t understand, like they’re playing Pai Sho on a board two feet above everyone else. If this is what it’s like growing up in the royal family, then Sokka’s glad he wasn’t born royal.

“You make a good case, Iroh,” the Fire Lord finally says. His voice has shifted; he’s gone from cold and angry to...almost _smug._ Sokka can’t help but wonder which brother won this little game. “I suppose you’re right. A promotion is in order.” He leans forward, and all too suddenly, Piandao, Sokka and Jet are once again the focus of his attention.

“Piandao,” the Fire Lord says calmly. “Your wards have been promoted to the Prince’s guard. They are to take the place of the guards who died today. They begin tomorrow.”

Piandao bows. “Understood, majesty,” he says, echoing his words from earlier. “Thank you for your attention.”

The Fire Lord doesn’t bother dismissing them this time. He just waves them off, and Piandao takes one look at the room around them—the General, the Fire Lord, Zhao looking ready to throw a fit, the five dozen battle-ready guards—and gives Sokka and Jet a look that clearly reads, _time to get the hell out of here._

Sokka’s definitely not going to argue against _that._ He and Jet dutifully follow Piandao as he turns and leads them out of the throne room, passing the General on the way out. And...Sokka might be imagining things, but he could swear that the General _winks_ at Piandao as they pass.

The doors to the throne room shut behind them with a resounding _boom._ Piandao stops dead in his tracks, wheeling around to face them with wide eyes.

For a second, all three of them just stare at each other. Jet’s the one who finally breaks it by voicing what all of them are thinking:

“What,” he says hoarsely, “the _fuck_ just happened?”

* * *

Dinner that night is awkward, to say the least. Haru doesn’t believe them when they tell him that they’ve been promoted to the Prince’s guard, which means that they leave it up to Piandao to break the news. Unfortunately, breaking the news also leads to Haru breaking a bowl, because Piandao, apparently, had thought that saying, ‘Jet and Sokka were promoted by the Fire Lord’ while Haru was eating was a good idea.

Once Haru stops coughing, and Fat stops grumbling, Haru slams his fist down on the table. “What do you _mean,_ you got promoted?” he demands. “You’re— _you!”_

“Thank you for the glowing praise,” Sokka says dryly. Haru waves him off.

“You know what I mean,” he says, dropping back into his seat. “We all know there’s no way the Fire Lord would’ve promoted you on his own. Who _actually_ got him to do it?”

Sokka and Jet both turn to Piandao. Piandao sighs and sets down his chopsticks.

“I _may,”_ he says hesitantly, “have... _talked_ with Iroh, before I came to get you.”

“So _that’s_ why you were in the West Wing!” Jet shouts, jumping to his feet. 

Sokka gapes at him. _“You bribed High General Iroh?!”_

“No, I did not,” Piandao says, looking more than ever like he wishes he’d never taken them on as wards. He reaches across the table and pushes down on Jet’s shoulder, forcing him back down into his seat. “Iroh and I are old friends. How do you think I managed to get you two jobs as palace guards in the first place? Or Haru a place at the academy?”

“You said you talked to a Grand Lotus,” Sokka says accusingly. “Who, and I quote, ‘wanted to make the initiation of new recruits as smooth as possible.’”

“I did say that.” Piandao sips at his tea. “Because it was true.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, which is always rare at Piandao’s estate. Sokka’s close to the truth, he knows it—he just has to put these two pieces together. Piandao is friends with Iroh, who helped them get jobs at the palace. A Grand Lotus helped them get jobs at the palace. Which means…

_“High General Iroh is a Grand Lotus?!”_ Sokka all but shrieks. Piandao claps his hands over his ears and squeezes his eyes shut. 

“And you didn’t think that you could’ve told us this _before_ he turned up out of nowhere and saved our asses?” Jet yells. Next to him, Haru is white as a sheet.

“Holy shit,” Sokka says, running his hands through his hair. He’s probably ruining his wolf-tail, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Holy _shit._ If Iroh’s a Grand Lotus, does that mean—oh, spirits, is _he_ the Grand Lotus who’s going to officially accept us into the Order? Are we going to have to _fight him?”_

“We have to _fight High General Iroh?”_ Haru shoves himself away from the table. “Nope, I’m out. I’m not joining the Order. There’s no way I’m signing myself up for _that_ death sentence.”

Their group breakdown is rudely interrupted by the deafening clang of a spoon hitting the bottom of a metal wok. All three of them wince, covering their ears against the sound and obediently shutting up.

Fat lowers the spoon and wok and glares at them, then jerks his chin at Piandao. Piandao inhales deeply, flattening his fingers on the table, and opens his eyes.

“No, you will not have to fight Iroh,” he says tiredly. “The ‘fighting a Grand Lotus’ ritual was just a story that Jeong Jeong made up to scare you. Yes, you will have to demonstrate what you’ve learned from each nation to a Grand Lotus, and yes, that Grand Lotus will most likely be Iroh.” He levels a glare at all of them. “And, may I remind you, you all willingly became initiates, and you all willingly chose what aspect of life you would be learning from each nation. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to warn you two—” He points at Sokka and Jet. “—about the dangers of what happened to you today.”

Jet snorts. _“Dangers?_ Piandao, today was the first time anything’s happened in the West Tower in the last four years. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I’m sure that’s what the last guards thought, and look at them now,” Piandao retorts. “But no, I’m not talking about external dangers. I’m talking about internal dangers.” He folds his hands, looking down at them more seriously than Sokka’s ever seen him. “Sokka, Jet, you have to watch your backs. What you saw in the throne room today—believe me, the Fire Lord’s motives for promoting you go much deeper than simply _wanting the Prince to have friends._ I’m not sure why he did it, but I know it isn’t good. Not for you, at least.”

A chill goes down Sokka’s spine. He exchanges a look with Jet; Piandao’s right. The Fire Lord has his own reasons for promoting them, and judging from the way he’d sounded when he’d agreed, it’s not going to end well for them or for the Prince.

“Well, then,” Haru finally says, breaking the silence, “I’d really hate to be one of you right now.”

Sokka and Jet look at each other and nod. Then, with the single-minded mentality that comes from banding together against a common enemy, they promptly start pelting Haru with pieces of steamed fish.

* * *

It’s later that night, when he’s sitting in his room and penning his latest letter to Katara, that it really sinks in.

_I’ve been promoted,_ he writes, his characters starting to get loose and sloppy the way they do when he’s tired. _Prince’s guard. Don’t get happy, it’s not a good thing. Piandao thinks the Fire Lord has ulterior motives. There, look at me, using fancy words like ‘ulterior’. Tell Bato, he’ll be proud._

When he reads over it again, it’s like he’s been dunked in ice water. _I’ve been promoted. Prince’s guard._

He really _has_ been promoted. Starting from tomorrow, he won’t be heading to his regular spot on the North Wall anymore. He’ll be up in the West Tower, in that hallway that probably still smells like Kinzu and Hina’s blood, guarding the locked door of a Prince who hasn’t been seen since he was thirteen. It’ll be weird, to say the least, and that’s without even going near the whole clusterfuck of problems that is the Fire Lord. 

He leans back, letting his head loll over the back of his chair. He stares up at the ceiling, lit by the single flickering candle on his desk.

“The Prince’s guard,” he says out loud, the words barely audible over the sound of the cricket-cadas outside. “Spirits, Sokka, you’ve really gone and done it now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know a lot of things about this chapter are confusing, including but not limited to: sokka, jet and haru all being in the fire nation, zuko being locked up in a tower for six years, and ozai seemingly caring about whether or not zuko has friends, but i promise things get explained later!! and thank you for giving this story a chance!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok SO the response to the first chapter literally blew me away like??? what did i do to deserve this guys thank you so much
> 
> also, to clear up some things:  
> \- sokka is 18 and zuko, jet and haru are 19. out of context spoiler: birthdays will be involved in this fic. people will be getting older. these ages are liable to change  
> \- again: this is a no-war AU! however, there WAS a recent war, but it's not the one you're thinking of. that gets explained later  
> \- in accordance with this ^, katara is safe and sound in the south pole, training aang - who has recently turned 16 and is therefore beginning his avatar training. toph is still in gaoling, doing toph things.  
> \- no, the assassin last chapter was not mai  
> \- what happened to azula? we'll find out soon >:)
> 
> (you may have noticed that the chapter count on this fic has jumped from 4 to 10. that's because i realised that 4 chapters DEFINITELY isn't enough, but i hate leaving the chapter count at ?, so 10 is a general estimate. It's likely to change, so don't be surprised if the chapter count drops or rises between chapters.)

“Again.”

“But I already—”

_“Again.”_

“Okay, _okay,”_ Sokka grumbles under his breath, moving back to the starting position. He takes a moment to breathe, then raises his sword and steps forward to carry out his first attack—

The flat of Piandao’s blade swats against the back of his leg with a dull _thwack._ “Too wide. Adjust.”

Sokka looks down at his legs. “Looks fine to me.”

“But not to me,” Piandao says curtly. “And _I_ am the master here.” Another thwack. _“Adjust.”_

Sokka rolls his eyes and moves his feet closer to each other. “Better now?”

“No.” Piandao pokes at his thigh with the tip of his sword. Thank the spirits it’s sheathed, or Sokka would be losing a hamstring. “Your knees are too bent. Your stance is off.”

“My stance is fine!”

“Your stance is an _Earth Kingdom stance,”_ Piandao snaps. He’s pissy today, being nitpicky and judgy about all the little things that he’s usually willing to let go. It’s weird. “And remind me which nation you’re in now?”

“The Fire Nation,” Sokka mutters.

“Exactly.” Piandao gives him a hard look. “And we do not use Earth Kingdom stances in the Fire Nation. We use Fire Nation stances.”

“I thought the whole point of this was so that I’d learn styles from _all_ the nations,” Sokka complains. And then, a little more bitterly: _“Suki_ didn’t yell at me when I used a Water Tribe stance.”

(That’s a bald-faced lie. Suki had smacked him over the head with her fan when he’d used a Water Tribe stance, yelled that it ‘defeated the whole purpose’ and ‘stunted his learning’, and had then proceeded to make him stand in horse stance for hours. His thighs had burned for ages.)

“You can’t learn styles from all four nations if you keep hijacking one nation’s style with another,” Piandao scolds. “You have to learn each style, _individually,_ before you can begin to mix them together. You have to prepare all your ingredients separately before you can add them to the pot.”

Sokka groans. He’s really not in the mood for Piandao’s metaphors today. “Can we not talk about ingredients and pots? It’s making me hungry.”

“We had lunch, like, an hour ago,” Jet calls from the other side of the courtyard, where he’s practicing his calligraphy. There’s ink splattered all the way up to his forearms, and the poor brush looks like it’s been through hell. “How are you already hungry?”

“Because _he_ keeps talking about food!” Sokka exclaims, throwing an arm out at Piandao. It proves to be a mistake a few seconds later, when the flat of Piandao’s blade lands on the crook of his elbow.

“Back into position,” Piandao says over the sound of Sokka swearing. There’s definitely a touch of smugness in his voice. “And I want to see a Fire Nation stance this time.” 

“Okay, spirits, _fine,”_ Sokka says, moving into an appropriately Fire Nation-y stance. “Are you happy now?”

“I’m _satisfied,”_ Piandao sniffs. “Don’t put too much weight on your heels. You need to be light on your feet. Remember, in Fire Nation style, your offense—”

“—is your defense,” Sokka recites duly. It’s only something he’s heard a thousand times, along with _attack before your opponent does_ and _hit first, hit hard, and don’t let them hit back._ “I get it, okay? Can we—I don’t know, take a breather?”

“You won’t get any _breathers_ in the middle of a fight,” Piandao says. “It would be—”

Sokka hits him with the goat-puppy eyes. No one can resist the goat-puppy eyes.

(Except Katara, but that’s different, because the only reason she can resist is because _she_ can do the goat-puppy eyes, too. It cancels out.)

Piandao pinches his nose. He lets out a long, low sigh. _“Fine,”_ he says, waving one hand over at Jet. “You can have a break. Fifteen minutes, and then we’re back to—”

He’s interrupted by the tinny clanging sound of a handheld gong. Sokka instinctively straightens his spine and pushes his shoulders back—by now, he’s developed a knee-jerk reaction to Fat’s little copper gong. 

Sure enough, Fat is standing at the top of the courtyard steps, scowling down at them. He gives Piandao a short bow, then holds up a candle. It’s not just any candle, though—it’s a time candle, and it’s burned down nearly halfway.

“It’s almost six,” Fat says curtly. “The young masters should get going if they don’t want to be late.”

Sokka swears. “Already?” He looks up at the sky to check, but the sun is nearly touching the horizon, confirming that it really is close to six. The sun sets at half-past six, and Zhao's message from earlier this morning told them that they had to be at Lieutenant Jee's office by quarter to seven.

Piandao reaches out and taps Sokka's sword. "Go clean yourself up. You especially." He directs the last words at Jet, who is still very much covered in ink. “You don’t want to be late on your first day.”

“Yes, Sifu,” they both chorus, giving Piandao a quick bow. Sokka sheathes his sword, then darts up the steps, snatching the time candle right out of Fat’s hands as he goes.

“Sorry!” he throws over his shoulder. Fat’s indignant spluttering follows him all the way down the hall as he turns the corner and starts heading towards his room. He doesn't have time to take a bath or anything, so he dunks a cloth in water and wipes himself down—Haru says it's gross, but fuck him—and shimmies into his guard's uniform. When he's done brushing away the flyaway hairs in his wolf-tail, he checks the time candle: it'll take them about twenty minutes to get to the palace if they walk, which means they have about ten minutes left before they have to go. Sokka spends the entirety of that ten minutes waiting impatiently outside Jet's door as he scrubs ink off his hands.

“Spirits, you’re slow,” he says, when Jet finally opens the door.

“And you’re a dick,” Jet promptly replies. “Let’s go.”

They both head to the front gate, where Piandao is already waiting for them. He’s holding Zhao’s letter in his hand. 

“Remember, you need to report to Lieutenant Jee’s office, not Captain Zhao’s.” Piandao plucks the time candle out of Sokka’s hand, replacing it with Zhao’s message. “You know where Lieutenant Jee’s office is, yes?”

“Absolutely not,” Jet says cheerfully, and Piandao heaves a long-suffering sigh. As if summoned by that sigh alone, Fat appears on his left with an inkbrush and paper in hand.

"Lieutenant Jee's office is next to the West Tower," Piandao says as he draws a quick map. From the city centre, a gong begins to ring, signalling sundown. "It borders the western courtyard. Just turn right when you get to the base of the West Tower, and you'll find it."

"Thank you, Sifu," they both say automatically, bowing to Piandao. Piandao bows back, then shoos them out onto the road.

"Remember what I told you!" he calls after them. "You have to be careful!"

"We will!" Sokka yells back, but his words are drowned out by the sundown gong and the clanging of the shutting gate. He's not sure if Piandao hears him. 

* * *

They make it to the Lieutenant's office a few minutes before seven. There's no helpful sign that says _Lieutenant's Office,_ nor are there any guards standing outside the door, but according to Piandao's map, this is where it is. Sokka looks at Jet, and Jet looks at Sokka, and Sokka says: "Dibs on not knocking."

"You _suck,"_ Jet says, but he steps up and knocks anyway.

They wait in silence for a few seconds, Sokka rolling up Piandao's map and stowing it away, before the door swings open. There's a man standing in the doorway: tall, middle-aged, with hair that's more grey than not. He looks down at them with an expression that looks more bored than anything.

"Hello," Sokka says. "We're looking for Lieutenant Jee?"

The man's mouth twitches. "I am Lieutenant Jee."

"O-oh." _Good going, Sokka. You've already fucked it up._ "Uh. Hello, sir. We're the new guards."

"Hm," says the Lieutenant. He's definitely not the talkative type. "Do you have proof of recruitment?"

"Uh—" Sokka rummages through his uniform, finally pulling out Zhao's extremely crumpled letter. "Does this count?"

The Lieutenant takes the letter and scans it. Sokka watches his face for any indication, but the man's a stone wall. Finally, he folds up the letter and nods at them. "Come in."

He turns on his heel and strides into the office. Sokka and Jet hurry after him. 

"Close the door," the Lieutenant says without looking at them, and Jet kicks the door shut.

The Lieutenant's office is...not what Sokka was expecting. It looks less like an office and more like a living room. There's a desk crammed in one corner, piled high with papers, but there's also a table in the centre of the room with a half-finished Pai Sho game on top of it. There's a board up on the far wall, with papers pinned to it, and what looks like a roster hanging up next to it. There's a shelf with folded clothes stacked on each of its levels; the clothes are all regular clothes, not uniforms, and they're different to each other. And on top of the shelf...

Sokka's mouth goes dry. There are two portraits propped up on top of the shelf, big enough that he can see the faces from here. And he recognises them. 

It's Kinzu and Hina.

They're both smiling, broad and bright. There are captions on both of their portraits, but the characters are too small for Sokka to read. In front of both portraits is a slow-burning joss stick, half burnt out, filling the Lieutenant's office with sweet-smelling smoke.

"Are you coming in or not?" the Lieutenant asks gruffly, and Sokka tears his eyes away from Kinzu and Hina's portraits. The Lieutenant is sitting at his desk, looking at Sokka and Jet with an expression that Sokka recognises: _you don't want to be here, and I don't want to be here, so let's just get it over with._ It's the same expression Bato makes every time he scolds Sokka.

Sokka and Jet both move forward until they're standing before the Lieutenant's desk. He observes them for a moment, then says, "So you two are the ones replacing Kinzu and Hina."

“Uh—yeah, we are,” Sokka says, swallowing a little at the mention of Kinzu and Hina. “Is that...a problem?”

The Lieutenant makes a noncommittal sound. “Depends on who you ask.”

They stare at each other in silence for another few seconds. This is probably the most uncomfortable Sokka's ever been in his life. Finally, the Lieutenant reaches down under his desk, pulls out a drawer, and fishes out a sheet of paper.

"This is the roster." He slides it across the desk. It is, in fact, a twin of the roster hanging on the wall. "There are four shifts in a day: two day shifts and two night shifts. The pair of you will be taking the second night shift, which I imagine is the same shift you took when you were stationed on the North Wall."

"It was, sir," Jet says, leaning forward to scan the roster. Sokka does, too; it's simple enough. Every day, he and Jet's shift starts at one in the morning. It lasts until seven, just after sunrise, with a food break in the middle. What surprises him isn't the shift times; it's the sheer _number_ of shifts. If there are four shifts in a day, and two guards per shift, then there should be eight guards on the roster. Instead, there are—Sokka counts the number of boxes across and down, then multiplies them. Seven by eight.

Fifty-six guards. In total, there are fifty-six guards stationed at the West Tower.

He taps the roster. "Why are there so many guards?" 

A small crease forms in the Lieutenant's brow as he looks down at the roster. "What do you mean?"

Sokka slowly moves his finger down the roster. Every row is labelled with a number, from one to seven. "There are two guards to a shift, and four shifts to a day. There should only be eight guards on this roster. There are fifty-six."

The Lieutenant huffs out something that might be a laugh. "Did you think that, in the entirety of the West Tower, there are only two guards protecting the Prince at any given time?" He raises his brows. "There are seven floors in the West Tower. Each floor has two guards, one on each side. For every shift, there are fourteen guards in total, not counting the ones stationed along the outer wall of the palace. If you _do_ count the guards along the outer wall, then there are twenty-eight guards to a shift."

"Huh." Sokka lets out a low whistle. "The Prince is well-protected."

"If he wasn't well-protected, he would be dead a hundred times over by now," the Lieutenant says, which makes Sokka and Jet look at him weird. Dead a hundred times over? That doesn't make sense. There haven't been nearly enough attacks on the Prince for the Lieutenant to say something like that.

Still, it's nothing important, so Sokka shrugs it off. He pushes the roster back across the table. "Is there anything else we should know?"

"Hm," the Lieutenant says, which Sokka suspects is his favourite word. "Well, first of all, tonight you'll be taking the first night shift, from seven at night to one in the morning. The Captain fears that, since Kinzu and Hina were killed, there may be another attack on the Prince during the second night shift. From tomorrow, however, you'll be taking the second night shift as usual. Come early tomorrow; you need to be introduced to the guards who take the second night shift for the other levels of the Tower."

Sokka and Jet both nod. The Lieutenant rises from his seat. 

"And," he adds, "for reference, this room is the common room. The Captain refers to it as my office, but it's more of a communal space, as you can see for yourself." He nods at the clothes on the shelves and the unfinished Pai Sho game. "This is my desk. If you have any paperwork—a complaint, a resignation letter, an ask for a raise—leave it here for me to find."

"Understood, sir." Sokka and Jet both bow, and the Lieutenant nods back. "Anything else?"

The Lieutenant pauses, as if he's considering something. "Actually," he says slowly, turning back to his desk, "yes."

He opens up the drawer again, rummaging through it for much longer than he did when he pulled out the roster. Finally, he produces a folded piece of paper, slightly yellowed with age.

"Look at this," he says, passing the paper to Sokka. "So you know what he looks like."

Sokka takes the paper, unfolding it to find a charcoal portrait of a boy. He’s young, maybe fourteen or so, with pale skin and dark hair. He’s not smiling. For a second, Sokka has no idea what’s going on, until he sees the court painter’s signature in the corner.

He nearly drops the portrait. “Is this—?”

“The Prince,” the Lieutenant confirms. “It’s the last portrait that was done of him before he fell ill.”

Jet peers at the portrait over Sokka’s shoulder. “So he’s, what—thirteen in this? Don’t you have any more recent pictures of him?”

The Lieutenant gives them an incredulous look. “No. And no one but the royal family has seen him since he got sick, so that portrait is the only frame of reference you’re going to get.”

Sokka looks back down at the portrait. He knows that royal portraits are meant to be all solemn and sober, but he can’t help but think that the Prince looks a little _too_ solemn. He’s staring straight at the artist, his face flat and blank, his eyes betraying no emotion. Sokka didn’t even know that thirteen-year-olds had the self control to look that serious. He knows for a fact that _he_ didn’t when he was thirteen.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s not like Sokka has anything to do with the Prince being too frowny in a six-year-old drawing. Besides, if he’d been told he had a sickness that couldn’t be cured, Sokka’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have been in the mood to smile either.

He folds the portrait up and hands it back to the Lieutenant. "Is that all we need to know?"

"That is all." The Lieutenant inclines his head. "Now, if you would follow me, I believe it's time for your first shift."

* * *

The Lieutenant takes them up to the sixth floor of the West Tower, which is weird, because Sokka was fully expecting the Prince to be at the top. When he asks, the Lieutenant just says, "That's what all the assassins thought, too," and he promptly decides to shut up.

To Sokka's surprise, when they step onto the sixth floor, there are three people already there. There are the two guards, of course, from the second day shift—and there's also Captain Zhao.

He's standing outside the Prince's door, scowling. As Sokka, Jet and the Lieutenant enter, he looks up, the scowl lessening but not fading.

"Jee," he acknowledges with a nod of his head, which is the most civil Sokka's ever seen him. His lip curls as he looks at Sokka and Jet. "And...you."

"Captain," Sokka says brightly, bowing with just enough enthusiasm to make it seem sarcastic. Jet bows too, but stiffly. 

"Captain," the Lieutenant says as well, bowing much more seriously than Sokka did. "What brings you here?"

Zhao jerks his head at the door. "The usual. Supervision." He smirks a little. "You came just in time, actually. It must be just past seven now, isn't it?"

The Lieutenant nods. With a grin that makes Sokka want to punch him, Zhao turns and pounds on the Prince's door.

"Hour's up, your highnesses!" he calls. Sokka exchanges a look with Jet: _your highnesses,_ plural? Is there someone else in the Prince's room?

Their mutual question gets answered a second later, when the handle turns and the door opens. The man who steps out of the Prince’s rooms looks vaguely familiar: tan skin, hair pulled up in a tight topknot, sideburns that actually look like sideburns and not like giant horns stuck onto the side of his face (cough cough, _Zhao)_. Maybe Sokka’s seen him somewhere before. He’s not sure.

The man steps aside, shutting the door behind him. Zhao immediately moves forward, sliding a key out of his sleeve and locking the door with a soft _click._ Sokka’s just about to ask the Lieutenant why there’s some random man visiting the Prince’s rooms, when—

The man turns around, his face coming fully into view, and it’s suddenly _abundantly_ clear who he is.

Sokka can’t help it—he stares. The scar isn’t easy to miss, after all; it’s a twisted starburst of pale tissue on the Commander’s temple, as big as a man’s fist and half-hidden beneath the Commander’s hairline. When he’s looking at it like this, Sokka can almost imagine how it happened: the Commander on the battlefield, too focused on the men in front of him instead of the men behind, not seeing the sword hilt aimed at his head until it was too late. Spirits know Piandao’s told the story enough times for Sokka to know it by heart.

Beside him, the Lieutenant bows, straightening so that the Commander can see his face before he speaks. “Commander Lu Ten,” he says formally, speaking in a voice much clearer than the gruff baritone he’d been using before.

The Commander smiles softly, dipping his head in a respectful nod. “Lieutenant Jee,” he responds. His voice is a little hoarse, and Sokka can’t help but wonder if that’s a family trait. 

The Commander’s gaze moves to Sokka and Jet, standing by the Lieutenant’s side. “You must be the new guards,” he says. Sokka nods a little; his voice is stuck in his throat. It’s stupid, but he doesn’t really know if he’s allowed to talk. The Lieutenant had done it, but then again, the Commander obviously knows him.

Zhao nudges the Commander in the side, which has to be some kind of breach of royal protocol. The Commander turns his head to give Zhao his full attention.

“Time to go, Commander,” Zhao says sourly. He tucks the key back into his sleeve; the Commander’s eyes follow it as it disappears. “I _hear_ your father is expecting you.”

Sokka winces. The Commander, for his credit, barely reacts; his smile tightens a bit, but other than that, he doesn’t give any indication of being annoyed by Zhao’s little insult. He’s probably used to it by now.

The Commander nods at Zhao, and, without another word, he starts moving down the hallway. Sokka and Jet stand aside to let him pass, but the Commander pauses as he reaches them.

“It’s good for Zuko to have guards his age,” he says, and then he _holds out his hand._ Sokka gapes at it. “I look forward to getting to know you two.”

“Likewise,” Sokka says faintly. The ‘no talking’ dilemma has been pushed aside in favour of the ‘holy shit a _royal_ is holding out his hand’ dilemma. He reaches out and gingerly shakes the Commander’s hand. Jet does the same, and the Commander gives them both one last smile before he turns and starts walking to the stairs. The two day shift guards nod at the Lieutenant, then at Sokka and Jet, and follow after the Commander.

A scoff catches Sokka’s attention. He looks up to find Zhao trailing after the Commander, sneering after his back.

“He used to be _Crown Prince,”_ Zhao says scornfully to the Lieutenant, who looks very much like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He gives Sokka and Jet a disdainful look. “Now look at him. Consorting with the rabble.”

Jet makes some kind of guttural noise in the back of his throat. Sokka grabs his arm and digs his nails in _hard_ to stop him from attacking Zhao right then and there. Zhao smirks down at them; he knows exactly what he’s doing, the bastard. He’d said his words loud enough for them to echo down the hallway, loud enough for everyone to hear—everyone, of course, but Commander Lu Ten.

From just behind Zhao's shoulder, the Lieutenant gives Sokka a warning look. Sokka's only known him for an hour, max, but the expression on his face is easy to read: _don't say anything._

So he doesn't. He glares at Zhao with so much intensity his eyes feel like they're about to fall out of his head, but he keeps his mouth shut. Zhao spares him and Jet one last contemptuous sneer, and then he's sweeping down the hallway, following in the Commander's wake.

Sokka only lets himself exhale once he's sure Zhao's out of earshot. Beside him, Jet looks about ready to explode.

"That _asshole,"_ Jet hisses, shaking off Sokka's restraining hand. "I swear, if we end up having to deal with that shit every night—"

"You will not," the Lieutenant says, frowning down at them. He doesn't look mad, even though Jet pretty much just spat on the Captain's name. "The Captain only ever visits the Prince's tower as an escort for Commander Lu Ten, and the Commander doesn't usually visit the Prince at night. They have breakfast together, though, so it's more than possible that you'll see the Captain in the mornings."

Jet grinds his teeth so loudly that Sokka starts to wonder if he has grain mills for teeth. "So what you're saying is we're going to have to deal with that shit every _day."_

"Essentially, yes," the Lieutenant says. "But since your shift ends at seven, I doubt you'll see him for long."

"Dude," Sokka says, tapping Jet on the shoulder. "You gotta chill. The sun rises at half-past six, so if the Prince and the Commander have breakfast _super_ early like Piandao does, then we'll see Zhao for, what—fifteen minutes a day? You can deal with fifteen minutes of Zhao, right?"

"I think you're overestimating my tolerance for bullshit," Jet says sourly. He scowls down at his shoes. "But yeah. I guess."

"There, see?" Sokka pats him on the shoulder and resolutely ignores the glare that Jet sends his way. "Positive reinforcement. It's working already."

Jet frowns. "That's not—you don't know what positive reinforcement is, do you?"

"Of course I don't," Sokka says. "What do I look like, some kind of nerd?"

"I watched you stay up late last week just so you could finish reading a thesis from that guy at Ba Sing Se University," Jet reminds him. "You're the _definition_ of a nerd."

"I resent that."

"I resent your face."

"Mhm, see, this is _negative_ reinforcement," Sokka says sagely, nodding his head. "This is what we don't want."

"Stop using words you don't know the meaning of!"

"Perhaps," the Lieutenant breaks in, abruptly reminding Sokka that they're not alone, "you should save this conversation for a later date." He raises his brow. "Unless, of course, you'd like the Prince to be privy to this information."

"The _Prince?"_ Jet swings around to stare at the door. "He's listening?"

"I've been listening since Lu Ten left," the Prince says flatly. He sounds so unimpressed it's painful. "You two are idiots."

"Hey, these idiots saved your life," Sokka says. "And you _vouched_ for us, so you can't really say anything."

There's a long, pregnant pause. Finally, the Lieutenant sighs and steps forward.

"Your highness," he begins, "these are the guards replacing Kinzu and Hina, so they'll be taking the second night shift. Their names are Jet and Sokka."

"I know," the Prince says. Is it Sokka's imagination, or does he sound a little sour? "As Sokka so kindly reminded me, I _am_ the one who vouched for them."

The Lieutenant squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose in a move that reminds Sokka all too much of Piandao. _"Teenagers,"_ he mutters, which Sokka generously pretends not to hear. And then, at a normal volume: "If you have no more questions, then I'll be taking my leave. Good night, your highness."

"Good night, Jee," the Prince echoes back. The Lieutenant nods at Sokka and Jet, then strides off down the hallway and out of sight.

For a handful of minutes, no one speaks. Sokka tugs on Jet's sleeve, pulling him forward until they're standing on either side of the door. He racks his brain for something normal to say, because he's the kind of person who'll just start blurting out the weirdest shit when he doesn't have a clear topic in mind, but the Prince beats him to it.

"Jee said you were taking the second night shift," he says abruptly. "It's seven in the evening. This isn't the second night shift."

"Yeah, no shit," Jet says. "Thanks to that little stunt your assassins pulled yesterday, they're putting more experienced guards on the second night shift today, in case they try something again. So we're taking the first night shift today, and _only_ for today."

"I think that's the most eloquent explanation I've ever heard you give," Sokka says, slightly awed. "I was seriously expecting you to just leave it at 'yeah, no shit'."

"Can't have his royal highness fretting over why the Lieutenant gave him false information, now can we?" Jet lifts his brows, then raises his voice a little. "So now you know, your highness. Feel better?"

"No," the Prince snaps, sounding distinctly grouchy. 

"Aw, why not?"

"My new guard's an ass."

"Too bad," Jet says, looking way too gleeful for someone who's currently pushing the buttons of one of the most powerful people in the Fire Nation. "You're stuck with me, your highness. Unless you'd like to publicly rescind your vote for me?"

Sokka elbows him in the side. "What's _wrong_ with you?" he hisses. "Why are you being a dick?"

Jet rolls his eyes. "It's _fun,"_ he says, elbowing Sokka right back. "C'mon, the guy's been shut in there for six years. I think he could do with some friendly fighting."

"This is not," the Prince says loudly, "in any way, shape or form, _friendly."_

Jet pats the door consolingly the way someone would pat an agitated animal. "Just keep telling yourself that, your highness. You'll come around eventually."

* * *

The Prince does not come around eventually. The Prince argues, and snaps, and calls Jet some words that Sokka doesn't think an isolated Prince should know. The one time he stops is when a servant, carrying a tray with the Prince's dinner and supervised by one of Zhao's men, comes up to unlock the door and open it just enough to slide the tray in. Sokka cranes his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the Prince, but the servant's clearly got experience at making sure no one sees him; she strategically positions her body so that the gap in the door is almost completely covered, pushing the tray in and shutting the door so quickly that Sokka doesn't even see the Prince's _room._ He doesn't have the time to dwell on how weird her behaviour is, though, because once she and the guard are gone, Jet launches right back into verbal sparring with the Prince. By the time they reach the halfway mark at half past ten, Sokka's throat is sore from alternating between yelling at Jet, yelling at the Prince, and yelling at the guards who come running to investigate the noise. 

"You're horrible," Sokka accuses, poking his finger in Jet's face. "Deplorable. Depraved."

"I don't know what half those words mean," Jet replies. "I'm simply being a good citizen of society and providing our dear friend the Prince with some enrichment."

"I'm not an _animal,"_ the Prince seethes.

"Mhm," Jet says. From the other end of the hallway, there's the sound of footsteps, and they both turn to look as the guard from the seventh floor starts coming down the stairs.

Jet claps Sokka on the shoulder. "It's our break, right? I'll go down and get the food. I won't take long."

"Please," Sokka says, _"please_ take long. I don't want you two in the same vicinity for longer than you have to be."

"I'll be back as soon as possible," Jet says instead, darting off down the hallway. Sokka groans and buries his face in his hands, giving the seventh floor guard a half-hearted salute as he passes. For a handful of heartbeats, there is blessed, blissful silence.

"Sorry about him, by the way," Sokka finally says aloud, assuming that the Prince is still on the other side of the door. "He can be...a lot, sometimes. He likes to poke fun at people."

"I can tell," the Prince says dryly. Sokka huffs a laugh, then remembers that there is, actually, something he wants to talk to the Prince about.

"I wanted to thank you, actually," he says, and the Prince goes silent.

"For what?" he finally asks.

"For vouching for us. You didn't have to."

"Oh," the Prince says quietly, and it sounds more like he's talking to himself than to Sokka. "It's fine. My uncle asked me to, and—you did me a favour anyways, with Kinzu and Hina. It would've been rude if I said no."

"Well, yeah," Sokka admits. "But you didn't, like, _have_ to."

"Agree to disagree," the Prince says, and Sokka laughs again. The Prince is...nice, in his own weird way, when he's not snapping insults at Jet through a door. Sokka thinks that maybe, if he knew the Prince before this, they might've been friends. 

"Agree to disagree," he accepts, leaning back against the wall. Another question, one that's been floating around since yesterday's attack, pops into his head. "And there's something else I wanted to ask you."

The Prince makes an encouraging sound. Sokka takes a deep breath—he knows this subject is touchy, he just knows it is—and says, "What did you mean, when you said you couldn't leave without your father's permission?"

The atmosphere tangibly changes. Sokka gulps a little, shifting on his feet.

"What do you think it means?" the Prince finally asks. There's that bitter note in his voice again. "How many meanings could it possibly have?"

"I know, I know, it's just—" Sokka flails for the right words to use. "He doesn't—you're allowed to go out _sometimes,_ right? Right?"

The Prince's silence speaks volumes.

Sokka's heart sinks. "Have you _actually_ been in there for six years? You've never been out, not even once?"

"My father has never given me permission to leave," the Prince says stiffly. "And without his permission, the door stays locked."

"Oh. Oh, spirits." Sokka suddenly feels queasy. "That's, uh. That's rough, buddy."

The Prince barks out a humourless laugh. "Yes, it is."

Sokka tries to wrap his head around it. Six years. _Six whole years,_ every single day spent shut in this tower, slowly wasting away from sickness. It's a horrible fate, one that he wouldn't wish on anyone. 

“I mean,” he says hesitantly, “he’s probably just doing it to protect you, right?”

“To _protect_ me?” The Prince’s voice sharpens into something deadly. “From what, exactly? Fresh air?”

“I don’t know!” Sokka throws up his hands. “I’m just saying, he wouldn’t do that to you unless he had a reason.”

“Of course.” The Prince’s voice is so bitter it would make lemons cry. “He has a _reason_ for locking me up. A perfectly good reason.”

Sokka frowns. He knows Fire Lord Ozai isn’t exactly the warm fuzzy type—spirits, he _knows_ —but there’s no way he would lock his own son in a tower for six years without a reason, right? 

Right?

"There has to be a reason," he finally says, his voice smaller than it should be. "He wouldn't do it without a reason."

"Wouldn't he?" the Prince asks. Sokka suddenly feels like he's eavesdropping on a conversation that he shouldn't be part of. There's _definite_ history between the Prince and his father, and Sokka's not sure if he wants to know.

He's saved, ironically enough, by Jet. He comes bounding up the stairs with a bowl in each hand, balancing them precariously on his palms. 

"You're a menace to society," Sokka says, eyeing the bowls warily. 

"You should be thanking me," Jet sniffs, handing him one of the bowls. "I carried these up six whole flights of stairs for you."

"Let me guess," Sokka says. "You got the guard from the seventh floor to help you."

Jet pauses, very conspicuously. "...No."

"He got me to help him," confirms the guard from the seventh floor as he comes up the stairs with his own two bowls. Jet shoots him a betrayed look. "He promised he'd give me his snow peas."

"Well, can't break a promise, can you?" Sokka reaches over and plucks out the steamed snow peas from Jet's bowl, dropping them into the other guard's bowl with a flourish. "Have a good night."

"You too," acknowledges the guard with a tip of his head and a smug smile in Jet's direction. Jet stays stock-still, gaping at his suddenly snow-pea-less bowl, until the guard is gone. Then he turns to Sokka and says, "You little _shit_. _"_

"Don't make promises you can't keep, then," Sokka says, and darts away when Jet lunges forward in an attempt to take his snow peas. On the other side of the door, the Prince laughs at them both.

* * *

They turn up the next day fifteen minutes early, at a quarter to one, as they promised the Lieutenant they would. When they get to the common room, the Lieutenant is already waiting for them, reading through papers on his desk.

"Ah, good, you're here," he says, as Jet shuts the door behind them. "Come. You need to be introduced to the other guards."

Sokka looks around the common room. It's empty except for them. "Uh. Where are they?"

The Lieutenant beckons for them to follow him as he moves to the far wall, where there's a paper sliding door. Sokka had just assumed that it led to a bathroom or something. "Here."

He slides open the door, and Sokka stares.

Vaguely, he remembers Piandao telling them that the Lieutenant's office bordered the western courtyard. Still, he'd thought the courtyard was just—well, a courtyard. Not _this._

There are a dozen other guards in the courtyard, which is huge, and open-air, and lit by paper lanterns that are bigger than Sokka's head. Half of the guards are sparring, while the other half sit on the ground, eating food and chatting amicably. Sokka watches the sparring pairs with a certain kind of awe— _this_ is why Piandao had signed them up for the royal guard. 

The training process for the royal guard is infamous. It's grueling, demanding, and weeds out the incompetent. The only reason Sokka and Jet had managed to bypass it was because they were Piandao's wards, and being privately trained by a qualified swordmaster counts as an alternative. 

The guards sparring in front of them now clearly didn't take the alternative. They all move with their swords like they're extensions of their bodies, quick and light on their feet, striking each other as fast as spitting snakes. Sokka watches as one guard steps _on_ her opponent's sword, using it as a platform to jump off of. She lands on the ground behind her opponent and whirls around, kicking his knees out from under him before he has a chance to turn.

"Everyone!" the Lieutenant calls, and the other guards pause their sparring and eating to jump to attention. He points at Sokka and Jet. "These are your new colleagues. They'll be replacing Kinzu and Hina on the sixth floor's second night shift."

A low murmur ripples through the other guards at that, some of them turning cool eyes on Sokka and Jet. Sokka gulps as he remembers what the Lieutenant had said when he'd asked if replacing Kinzu and Hina was a problem: _depends on who you ask._

He thinks of the portraits of Kinzu and Hina in the common room. He thinks of how the Prince had asked him to let them keep their honour. He looks at the faces of the guards in front of them, and he knows that it'll take time for some of them to deal with their grief. 

That's okay. He's fine with that. 

"So," one of the guards says. He's a man who looks around Commander Lu Ten's age, in his late twenties or so. "What are your names?"

"He's Sokka, I'm Jet," Jet says, before Sokka can answer. Sokka glances at him; he's staring resolutely forward, his jaw tight. He must've noticed the hostile looks, too. 

"Well, let me give you some advice, Sokka and Jet," the woman who'd kicked off the sword says. She jerks a thumb in the Lieutenant's direction. "Don't give him any paperwork, he's piss-poor at sorting it. You could put it right in front of him and it'd still wind up getting lost."

"Hanako," the Lieutenant says wearily, as Sokka and Jet exchange a wide-eyed look. That kind of language would get anyone under Zhao's command dismissed, but the Lieutenant looks like he's used to it. 

Hanako shrugs. "What? It's true." She winks at Sokka and Jet and lowers her voice conspiratorially. "Personally, I think he's faking it. He's using it as an excuse so he doesn't have to give us raises."

"I'm not the one who gives you raises, the Captain—" The Lieutenant cuts himself off, then sighs. "Just—introduce yourselves. Be nice. Don't be too harsh on them."

"Aye aye, Captain," one of the other guards says, saluting him. This seems to be an inside joke, because the other guards all chuckle. The Lieutenant rolls his eyes, then turns and goes back inside.

Sokka desperately wants to follow him. He doesn't want to be stuck here, drowning in awkwardness while the other guards stare at him and Jet. They're all older than them—the man who'd asked their names looks around ten years older, and he's the youngest one of them all. It's unnerving.

"Introductions, then," the man says. "I'll start. I'm Eito. I take the third floor." 

"Hanako," says Hanako. "Fourth floor."

One by one, the others pitch in. Sokka tries his best to memorise them—the one with the scar on his nose is Kazue, who takes the second floor with Ling Guo. The woman with the Earth-Kingdom-green eyes is Huyen, and she takes the seventh floor with Ren, who claims that they've had enough of her and would gladly trade places with Sokka or Jet. Huan is the one who was glaring at them before, and he takes the fourth floor with Hanako. Eito takes the third floor with Liling, who has the darkest hair Sokka's ever seen. On the first floor, there's Nayla and Jinko, who give Sokka matching death stares. And then, on the fifth floor, there's Jiao Long, the oldest of the guards with a half-grey beard, and Su, who takes one look at Jet and declares that she _knows_ he's a troublemaker.

By the time they finish their introductions, it's already close to seven. Sokka and Jet follow the other guards as they start traipsing up the Tower, greeting the guards from the first night shift as they go. Floor by floor, the guards of the second night shift begin peeling away in pairs, until finally it's just Sokka and Jet left with Huyen and Ren.

"Well, this is where you leave us," Ren says, clapping their hands together. "If you have any questions, scream. If something happens, scream. If there's a bug, scream."

"Do _not_ scream if there's a bug," Huyen interrupts, glaring at Ren. She points at Sokka and Jet threateningly. "Don't fuck this up."

"Yes ma'am," Sokka squeaks out. Huyen rolls her eyes and grabs Ren by the arm. Ren lets themself get tugged up the stairs, waving at Sokka and Jet and calling out a last, "Welcome to the Prince's guard!" as they leave.

Sokka blinks, turning to Jet. "That was an experience."

"No shit," Jet says, taking up his post on the left side of the door. "Did you see the way that Huan guy was looking at us?"

"Oh, he hates us," Sokka says conversationally. "Like, one-hundred-percent hates us."

"Huan hates everyone," the Prince says through the door, so suddenly that Sokka and Jet both scream and jump away. "Don't take it personally."

"What the _fuck?"_ Sokka yells. "You're still awake?!"

"No, I'm sleeptalking," the Prince deadpans, as if it's perfectly normal to be awake at one in the morning. Sokka takes a deep breath, catches sight of Ren's feet at the top of the staircase, and calls, "Don't worry, it was just a bug!"

Ren lets out a hearty laugh. "Already getting the hang of things, I see!" they say cheerfully. "Scream if you see another!"

"Will do," Sokka says, watching as Ren's feet disappear back up the staircase. He forces himself to breathe properly, then turns back to the door.

"You," he says, pointing at the door like the Prince will see it, "should be asleep."

"Clearly, I'm not," the Prince replies.

"You're an asshole," Jet says, sounding almost awed. "You know what? I've decided I like you. We're gonna be friends now."

"We will _not,"_ says the Prince, sounding scandalised. Sokka can't help it—he laughs.

* * *

They fall into a routine. Every morning, Sokka and Jet take up their posts at the Prince's door. The Prince will, inexplicably, be awake. They'll talk for a while, and then the Prince leaves sometime around three, presumably to sleep like a normal person. In the absence of someone better to insult, Jet will turn to Sokka, and they usually end up having a shouting match that isn't _really_ a shouting match, because they have to whisper to make sure they don't accidentally make the rest of the palace think the Prince is getting murdered. Towards the end of their shift, just after sunrise, Commander Lu Ten will turn up with a tray of breakfast and Zhao in tow. The Commander will nod at them, Zhao will not, and then Sokka and Jet spend the next fifteen minutes glaring at him until Ren and Huyen come down from the seventh floor and whisk them away.

(Two weeks into this new routine, Sokka teasingly asks the Prince if he purposefully stays up to talk to them. The Prince lets out a string of curses so foul that Sokka's ears are still ringing long after their shift is over.)

Despite Piandao getting more and more anxious with each passing day, nothing bad happens. The Fire Lord doesn't stage an attack on them. Zhao doesn't try to fire them. By the time they reach the four-week mark, the first few days of summer have arrived, and Sokka and Jet are still alive. Nothing of note has happened. No one tries to sneak into the Prince's rooms.

Until, of course, someone does.

* * *

It's the third day of summer, and even the nights are unbearably hot. 

"I can't believe they live like this," Sokka complains to Jet, fanning the underside of his neck with his hand. "Imagine having to deal with this every single summer. I'd _die."_

"Just wait until the monsoons start," Jet says, with far too much glee. Sokka stares at him in horror.

"Monsoons?" he squeaks. "I thought the monsoons came in winter!"

"Dude, no." Jet gives him an extremely judgmental look, which Sokka thinks isn't very fair. He's from the South Pole, how is he meant to know when monsoon season is? "The monsoons come all the time. The whole point of a summer monsoon is that it's hot _and_ wet. Kind of like that one girl at the—"

 _"And_ that's enough talking for today," Sokka interrupts, clapping one hand over Jet's mouth. He's had enough recountings of Jet's, ahem, _ventures_ for a lifetime. "Anyway, as I was saying—how does anyone live like this? Do they _like_ living in a sauna? Is that fun for them?"

"Why are you asking _me?"_ Jet asks. "I'm from the Earth Kingdom. If you're going to ask anyone, you should ask him." He jerks his thumb at the door behind them.

Sokka rolls his eyes. "It's half past five in the morning. I'm not going to wake him up just to ask him how he deals with living in a freaking oven."

"If you won't do it, I will," Jet says, moving like he's about to knock on the door, and—

Sokka reaches out and grabs Jet by the wrist. Jet looks down at him, frowning. "I wasn't _actually_ going to wake him up."

"Shut up," Sokka says shortly. Jet makes an offended noise, so Sokka reaches up with his other hand and clamps it over his mouth. "I said shut _up,_ Jet. Do you hear that?"

Jet makes a muffled sound against his palm that's probably _hear what?_ Sokka ignores him in favour of closing his eyes and listening harder.

There it is again—the creaking of wood. Almost like someone's pushing open a door, or a window. It's faint, so faint that Sokka _could_ be imagining it, but...

He presses his ear to the Prince's door. For a second, he hears nothing, and then—

The _shhk_ sound of a paper screen being pushed aside. Sokka would know it anywhere; he's been pushing aside the paper screen on his own bedroom window for weeks now in an effort to stave off the heat. And it's coming from inside the Prince's room, which means...

Sokka's heart drops. 

"Someone's in the Prince's room," he says abruptly, pushing off from the door. Jet's eyes widen. Sokka brings his hand off Jet's mouth, then points at him. 

"Stay here," he warns. "Do _not_ move. If this turns out to be a false alarm, or a distraction, we need at least one person at the door."

"Got it," Jet says. Sokka can insult him all he likes, but he has to admit, Jet is a good person to have on his side. "And you'll be doing what, exactly?"

Sokka's feet are already carrying him down the hallway, but not towards the stairs that go down. He's heading towards the stairs that go _up—_ he needs to get to the seventh floor. 

"I'm finding out who it is," he says, and takes the stairs up two at a time.

* * *

When Sokka gets onto the seventh floor, there's no one there. Which makes sense, technically—there are two people on every floor, standing on opposite sites. Besides, their priority is to make sure no one gets _in_ to the Tower, not to dispatch the people already inside.

Sokka doesn't know why, but he walks as quietly as possible. There is, after all, the very real possibility that this is a false alarm. He doesn't want to end up waking the whole palace at half past five in the morning because the Prince opened his window to get some fresh air. So he—well, he sneaks, for lack of a better word—around the side of the seventh floor, mentally trying to envision the outside of the West Tower in his head. What side would the Prince's window be facing?

Well...he's _pretty_ sure it'd be facing the western courtyard. He distinctly remembers Hanako showing him and Jet the layout of the West Tower on their third day, and she'd said something about how the window opened onto the courtyard instead of the outer wall to make it harder for anyone to sneak in. And if it's facing the courtyard, then it'd be facing north.

Sokka glances outside one of the windows of the West Tower. He's...he's facing north right now, actually. Technically speaking, he could climb out of this window, drop down onto the roof of the common room, and sneak into the Prince's room to check on him. Except, you know, he'd probably get skewered by the guards before he could so much as move. 

He pokes his head out of the window, just in case. He can see the guards on the outer wall, little black smudges in the night, but they're all facing away from him. He can't see Huyen or Ren no matter how far he cranes his head, which means that they must be facing east and west, not north and south. 

He glances down at the courtyard again. The Tower's shadow is long and dark, and he watches as a brown night-heron flies through it. The night-heron is very clearly visible, its wings gilded silver in the moonlight—but as it passes under the Tower's shadow, it disappears completely. 

...Gears start turning in Sokka's head.

He's not—he's not _technically_ breaking in. He's doing his job. He's checking the facts for himself.

Sokka watches the night-heron reappear as it flies out of the Tower's shadow, and he takes a deep breath, setting his hands on the window frame. 

Before he can think better of it, he pulls himself onto the frame and drops down onto the roof below.

The thing about the West Tower is this: it's a pagoda. It's tiered. He hits the roof of the sixth floor harder than he would like, and he nearly slides right off the edge until he grabs onto the roof tiles for support.

There's no way he did all that quietly. Sokka slides into the shadow of the Tower, pressing himself up against the wall and holding his breath. He edges to the side, just enough that the junction between the Tower and the outer wall covers him, and...

And the guards on the outer wall disappear from view.

Sokka's heart skips a beat. He double-checks, then triple-checks, but—nothing changes. Here, in this sliver of shadowed space, he is invisible.

"Holy shit," he whispers to himself. "Holy _shit."_

He's found a blind spot. It's tiny, but it exists. There's a blind spot in the Prince's guard, which means that the possibility of there being an assassin just got a whole lot more real.

Okay. Okay. He can't panic. He can _not_ panic. Panic will make everything worse.

Sokka takes a deep breath and, when no one raises the alarm, slowly rises to his feet. His legs are shaking. He sticks to the wall of the Tower, inching along slowly, until a window comes into view.

It's as he thought: the window, which he's assuming is the Prince's window, falls in that tiny blind spot. Sokka sidles right up to the edge of the window, checks for the gazillionth time that he hasn't been seen, and reaches up to poke at it.

There's no paper screen there. It's been pushed aside. Sokka inhales sharply, steeling himself, then lifts himself up onto his toes and peeks over the window frame.

He bites down on a scream.

There’s someone in the Prince’s room.

They’re not the Prince, Sokka knows that much. As much as he talks to the Prince, he's still never seen him—but even he knows that Princes don’t wear clothes like _that._ The person’s robes are dark and loose, styled like the draping clothes of the eastern Fire Islands. They look more suited for a mercenary than anything else, and certainly not for a Prince.

Which means that this is a stranger. A stranger who’d snuck into the Prince’s rooms in the dead of night, using a blind spot and forcing open the window. A stranger who is, right now, standing before the dresser at the far wall, their back turned to Sokka. Sokka doesn’t know what they’re doing, but they clearly don’t know he’s here—which means this is the perfect opportunity to intervene.

Sokka carefully pulls himself up and over the window frame, wincing a little when the wood creaks beneath his weight. He looks up, his heart pounding, but the stranger doesn’t seem to notice. 

Sokka drops down onto the floor, light as a cat. He spares a second to take in his surroundings, in case he needs to use them to fight—he’s obviously in some kind of antechamber, because there’s no bed. There _is_ a tea table, a writing desk, and a decorative vase that he could probably use as a weapon if need be. And, of course, there’s the dresser, which the stranger is still hunched over.

Sokka creeps up behind them, slowly sliding his sword out of its sheath as he does. He’s nearly in striking distance, his eyes trained on the back of the stranger’s neck, when—

His sword makes a quiet _shhk_ sound as it scrapes against the sheath, and the stranger’s head snaps up.

For a second, they just stare at each other, eyes locked in the mirror. Sokka catches a glimpse of pale skin and shaggy dark hair—and then the second’s over.

The stranger snatches something off the dresser and whirls around, but Sokka gets there first. He lunges forward and clamps his hand down on the stranger’s shoulder, shoving them down and slamming them onto the dresser. He swings his sword up against the stranger’s neck, digging the tip of the blade into the hollow of their throat.

The stranger goes still. They’re in an awkward position, their back pressed down against the dresser and their legs half-outstretched before them. Sokka glances down—their hand is clasped loosely around the handle of a dao sword, though they can’t do anything with it when he’s got them pinned like this. A quick look down at the dresser confirms that the sword is part of a pair, and the cloth lying next to it probably means that the stranger was cleaning them before Sokka intervened.

He drags his eyes back up to the stranger’s face, and his breath stutters in his throat.

The scar is an old, angry thing, stretching from the side of the stranger’s nose and up over his brow and cheek. The moonlight from the window throws it into sharp relief, lighting up all its grooves and ridges. Sokka can’t help but wince a little; a scar like that had to have hurt. Badly.

But that’s not important. What _is_ important is right in front of him. The window is open, the Prince is gone, and there’s a scarred stranger in the Prince’s rooms. It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together—the stranger is obviously an assassin. 

Sokka presses the tip of his sword further into the stranger's neck. "I'm going to give you one chance to tell me who you are and why I shouldn't kill you right now," he says, his voice deadly calm. "Start talking."

The assassin opens his mouth, then closes it again abruptly, his eyes widening a little. He swallows, his eyes darting around the room.

Sokka leans in a little closer. “Well?”

The assassin holds up his hand, keeping it well within Sokka’s sight, and moves it slowly to his own neck. His fingers brush against the edge of Sokka’s blade as he takes hold of his collar and turns it inside out so that Sokka can see the inside.

There’s an insignia there, and it’s one that Sokka knows well: the golden flame. It’s the insignia of the palace, and it’s embroidered on every piece of clothing that the palace commissions for its staff. And the assassin...is wearing it.

Sokka glances between the insignia and the assassin’s face. The assassin is staring at him imploringly, like he’s waiting for Sokka to understand.

Okay. No speech. Sokka can work with that. 

“The insignia doesn’t mean anything,” he says lowly. “You could’ve stolen it.”

The assassin rolls his eyes with way too much confidence for someone currently being held at swordpoint. He points at the insignia again, with more emphasis, then raises his eyebrow at Sokka as if to say: _really?_

See, here’s the thing: Sokka knows that the assassin didn’t steal the robes, because the royal insignia is a carefully-kept secret. The Fire Nation’s royal family has a history of paranoia, which is why the insignia was created in the first place—it’s meant to be some kind of code, to make sure that there are no impostors in the palace. Only palace staff and residents know what it means, which means that the assassin has to be part of palace life. 

But that makes even less sense, because why on earth would someone from the palace be sneaking into the Prince’s rooms?

The assassin snaps his fingers to get Sokka’s attention. Sokka tracks his hand as he slowly stretches his arm out over the dresser, pointedly avoiding his discarded dao blades. There’s an open container of what looks like salve on the edge of the dresser, and the assassin dips his finger into it. After glancing up to make sure that Sokka’s watching, he starts to write on the dresser with the salve.

It’s only two characters: _仆人. Servant._

The assassin—okay, fine, he’s probably not an assassin—circles the characters with his finger, then jabs the finger at himself. The meaning is clear: _I’m a servant._

Sokka snorts. “Yeah, right. Care to tell me why a servant’s sneaking into the Prince’s rooms in the middle of the night?”

Another two characters. _王子,_ for _prince._ The stranger points at _prince,_ then at _servant,_ and finally at himself.

Sokka furrows his brow. “You’re...the Prince’s servant?”

The stranger nods so hard his hair flops in front of his eyes. Sokka scowls at him. 

"The Prince's never mentioned a _servant,"_ he accuses. "And why would a servant have to break in through the window in the middle of the night?"

The stranger glances at the tin of salve, then uses his finger to point at the writing desk across the room. Sokka risks taking his eyes off him for a second to look at the writing desk—there's a few sheets of paper there, plus a tray of ink and a brush. He looks back to the stranger, who rolls his eyes and pointedly closes the tin of salve.

The meaning is clear enough: _get me ink and paper._ Sokka narrows his eyes at the stranger. "You seriously think I'm going to let you get up?"

The stranger gives him an incredulous look. Slowly enough that Sokka can track his movements, he takes up his dao sword again, then tosses it onto the floor. It hits the floor with a clang, and Sokka kicks it behind him without looking.

"I'm ambidextrous, so don't try anything funny," he warns the stranger, switching hands on his sword so he can take the stranger's other blade. He tosses that one down, too, kicking it behind him to join the first. The stranger makes no move to stop him, which is a message clear as day: _no weapons. No threat._

Sokka finally lightens his sword a bit, just enough for him to be able to fist a hand in the stranger's collar and haul him up without slitting his throat. Slowly, he walks the stranger backwards, until they're at the writing desk. He moves his sword in a curved arc around the stranger's neck until he's standing behind him, his arms and blade forming a semicircle around the stranger's throat. The stranger reaches for the ink and brush, and, without further ado, he begins to write.

 _礼_ is the first thing he writes, which makes no sense. _礼_ means ceremony, or ritual. Sokka frowns down at the paper.

The stranger, glancing back at him, hurries to correct it. _N_ _ame,_ he writes, then points at _礼_ again. Sokka blinks. _礼,_ Li. 

"Your name is Li?" he tries, and the stranger nods. "Okay, then, Li. So now I have a face and a name to match. Now tell me why you were breaking into the Prince's room."

In his haste, Li writes down disjointed words instead of full sentences. _Prince,_ he writes first. _Servant. Market. Buy for him. Sick. Stuck._

Sokka stares at the words, his brow furrowed, trying to piece them together. "You're the Prince's servant," he says slowly, and Li nods again. "You...buy the market for him?"

Li lets out an exasperated huff. Okay, wrong answer. Sokka tries again: "You buy things for him _at_ the market?"

A nod this time. Sokka moves on to the last four characters: _sick. Stuck._

"He's sick," Sokka says, because that part's clear enough. "And he's stuck."

More nodding. Sokka frowns.

"Stuck—you mean stuck in here?" Sokka glances around the room. Li nods, again. His neck's probably getting tired. It's not easy to do all that nodding with a sword at your throat. "Okay. Okay. So you're the Prince's servant, and you sneak out to buy him things from the market." Another nod, much more enthusiastic. "One question: _why?"_

Li hesitates, then writes, slower than before: _alone. For a long time. Only walls._

"Only...?" Sokka does another quick sweep of the room. There are books and scrolls everywhere—on the tea table, on the dresser, hell, even right here on the writing desk. "I don't know about you, but there are a hell of a lot more than walls here."

 _Now,_ Li writes. _Not before._ He keeps his eye on Sokka, as if gauging his reaction, then slowly reaches inside his robe.

Sokka tightens his grip immediately. "Hey, what the _hell—"_

Li pulls out...a scroll.

He sets it down on the desk. There's a title scrawled on it: _The Butterfly Lovers._ Sokka's heard of it before; it's a famous Earth Kingdom story, one that's been adapted into dozens of different plays. From the look of the scroll, this is one such play.

Okay, so Li...is almost definitely not an assassin. No self-respecting assassin would carry a copy of _The Butterfly Lovers_ while on their way to kill the Prince. Sokka steps back, removing his sword from Li's throat. Li visibly relaxes, his shoulders slumping.

“Okay, fine.” Sokka crosses his arms. “Say I believe you, and you really _are_ the Prince's servant. One more thing, then: where’s the Prince?”

Li points across the room. Sokka follows his finger to a door, closed and probably locked, that he hadn’t noticed before. That must be the Prince’s bedchamber; there is, after all, no bed in this room.

“Hm. The Prince is in there?"

Nod.

"So he won't mind if I go check on him?"

Li throws out his hand, his eyes wide with panic. He scrawls down something on the paper, rushed and messy.

_No one sees face. Doesn't like._

"He doesn't like people seeing his face?" Sokka guesses, and Li nods again. Would it kill the guy to give Sokka a thumbs-up or something? He'll end up breaking his own neck at this rate. "If I can't see him, then how am I supposed to confirm that he's there?" He squints at Li. "And, more importantly, that you're not lying?"

Li stares at him for a few seconds, then starts as if he's just had an idea. He crouches down over the paper again, scribbling: _I wake him. Voice._ _Recognise._

"There isn't a sword at your neck anymore, dude," Sokka mutters, reading the characters over Li's shoulder. "You can write in full sentences."

Li pauses, then moves his brush to start a new line.

 _I'll wake him,_ he writes. _A_ _sk him to speak. You can recognise his voice._

Sokka furrows his brow. Technically speaking, it would work. Li can't or won't speak, so by default, any voice that Sokka hears apart from his own is probably the Prince's. And the Prince's voice _is_ distinctive; Sokka's definitely able to recognise it if he tries.

"Okay," he says, stepping back and gesturing at the door. "But I'm warning you, if you take longer than thirty seconds, I'm going in there myself."

Li nods, wide-eyed. He moves towards the Prince's bedroom door, giving his _dao_ a wide berth as he does so. Sokka watches him like a hawk as he opens the door and slips inside, shutting it behind him.

On the off-chance that Li really _is_ an assassin, then Sokka's just condemned the Prince to death. Sokka squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself not to think about that. Li's left his weapons out here with Sokka; the worst he can do is suffocate the Prince with his pillow or something, and if that happens, then Sokka will hear it.

Sokka counts the silence by his own rapid heartbeats. _One-two-three-four-five-six-seven—_

"Sokka?"

The relief that hits Sokka turns his bones to jelly. "Zuko?"

 _Shit!_ screams a little voice at the back of his mind. _You're not meant to call him by his name!_

 _Fuck it,_ decides a slightly-less-little voice at the other back of his mind. _Who cares?_

"What happened?" Zuko demands. "Why is Li saying you tried to kill him?"

"Li—so he really _is_ your servant?"

"Yes, he is," Zuko says. "Wait—you thought he was an assassin, didn't you?"

Sokka lets out a breathless laugh, sliding down the wall until he hits the floor. He leans forward, stretching his arms out over his knees. "Yeah. So he's—he's not an assassin, right? You know him?"

"Of course I know him," Zuko says. "He says sorry about the breaking-in, by the way. That's kind of my fault."

"He buys you books, doesn't he?" Sokka asks, eyeing the _Butterfly Lovers_ scroll on the desk. "To keep you from going crazy from boredom."

"That's one way to put it," Zuko says. "But yes. Please don't kill my servant."

"Well, _now_ I won't," Sokka says. He glances out the window; the sky is beginning to lighten. It's probably going to be sunrise soon, and when that happens, his little blind spot in the Tower's shadow will disappear. "I should go. I need to tell Jet that nothing happened."

"Right, right." Zuko clears his throat. Sokka stands, sheathing his sword and brushing dust off his clothes. "But, Sokka—could I ask you a favour?"

"A favour?" Sokka quirks his mouth to the side. "Is this starting to become a trend?"

"Spirits, I hope not," Zuko mutters. "It's just—it's Li. He needs medical supplies."

Sokka stops dead in his tracks. _"Medical supplies?"_ He glances down at his blade, just to double-check that it's clean. He doesn't recall seeing any wounds on Li, but his dark, draping clothes could've easily covered up any blood. "What happened to him? Why does he need medical supplies?"

"Well," Zuko says, his voice wavering a little, "I'm assuming he got stabbed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...i will admit, that ending was not planned.
> 
> anyway! should sokka be suspicious? absolutely! is he suspicious? no he is not! the boy maxed out on intelligence and got none of the wisdom. 
> 
> some things about the encounter with lu ten might be confusing - sokka being afraid to talk, lu ten not hearing zhao, etc etc - but there's a reason for that! it gets explained next chapter.
> 
> (also: i'll try to actually respond to comments this time!! thank you guys so much for the response you've given this fic already! you can find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/azenkii) if you want.)


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